Chapter 68: Rank IV—and Black Banner Is Already at the Door
The Starcopper Vein notice did not disappear.
Cassian opened Forgotten Shrine’s Rank IV Advancement panel beside it.
The entry that had stayed gray finally had a name.
[Forgotten Shrine | Rank III → Rank IV]
[Other Basic Construction Requirements: Satisfied]
[Missing Key Resource: Starcopper]
Only that line was still red.
After Rank III, Stone, Black Oak, Refined Iron, and Gold Ore were no longer the hardest things for Forgotten Shrine to obtain.
The real barrier to the next Rank was Starcopper, something Riftward had almost no stable source of.
Now a Rare vein sat behind a thousand wolves.
Cassian closed the panel.
"Move."
Ten minutes later, the wolf pack spotted them first.
The Ironback Wolves at the front were nearly three meters long.
Their Levels ranged from thirty-six to forty-one.
There were too many of them.
When the pack charged, the entire field of tall grass flattened under a gray-black tide.
The Rocketiers had already raised their launchers.
Cassian lifted one hand.
"Don’t Overload yet."
Celia looked at him.
"You want to test those ninety points?"
"Yes."
"On the wolves?"
"Common first."
Aurelia had already stepped aside.
"Then I won’t take it."
The first Level 39 Ironback Wolf lunged in from the left.
Cassian did not activate Abyssal Pressure.
No Ground Anchor.
No Dread Mantle either.
He did not even draw his short sword.
The instant the giant wolf’s forepaws came down, Cassian stepped half a pace forward.
Not away.
His left shoulder drove beneath its chest.
His right hand caught the base of its foreleg.
Before, when something this large crashed into him head-on, Ground Anchor could keep him planted.
Not this time.
The Ironback Wolf slammed its full weight into him.
Cassian slid back only half a step.
Then his waist and back tightened.
The three-meter wolf was wrenched sideways off the ground.
BANG!
Its back smashed into the grass.
It had barely started to roll over when Cassian’s right fist hit the joint between its jaw and neck.
CRACK.
A clean sound.
The Ironback Wolf’s limbs twitched once.
Then stopped.
[Cassian Vale has killed Ironback Wolf.]
[Quality: Common | Level: 39]
Celia looked at the corpse.
Then at Cassian’s fist.
"You really don’t need to wait for me to cut everything open anymore."
Cassian flexed his fingers.
No cracked bones.
No whole-arm numbness like the old days after taking a high-grade impact head-on.
The ninety points he had assigned yesterday now had the most direct answer possible.
And the Warbody entry changed for the first time.
[Warbody Foundation I]
[Live Combat Adaptation: Recorded]
[Training route validated. Further growth requires continued load training, impact adaptation, and live-combat accumulation.]
No new skill appeared.
No second bundle of attributes came from nowhere.
It simply proved that the route opened yesterday really could keep moving forward.
The second wolf was already charging.
Cassian drew his sword.
A third followed.
Abyssal Pressure slowed its lunge.
The short sword went in under the throat.
Before the fourth reached him, Cassian stepped back into the formation.
Aurelia asked,
"Done already?"
"That’s enough."
"You were doing pretty well."
"I didn’t come out here to do my troops’ work against a thousand Common wolves."
Celia’s mouth moved slightly.
"Good."
"I didn’t want to watch a Warden personally fight his way all the way to the mine either."
Cassian looked at the Rocketiers.
"Now."
Twenty launchers rose together.
"Overload."
BOOM—!
For the first time, twenty trails of fire lit Galegrass Expanse at once.
The densest center of the wolf pack was torn open on the spot.
Common targets vanished in waves.
The Ironback Wolf Alpha howled and forced its way out of the edge of the blast.
Rare.
Level 43.
Core Trait: None.
Cassian closed the panel as soon as he read it.
"Kill it normally."
Celia cut the front leg first.
Sigrid’s Thunder Javelin punched into its chest next.
Aurelia’s final sword strike came down through its spine.
No one saved the final hit for Cassian.
There was no reason to.
Less than eight minutes later, the wolf pack was silent.
[Ironback Wolf pack settlement]
[Battle Essence +360,000]
[Ordinary equipment / material drops: 200+]
Cassian only had the intact Rare corpse and several dozen wolves with the strongest high-quality material reactions dragged aside.
The rest were not worth dismantling one by one out here.
He reopened his personal Warden Gate Link.
[Opening Cost: Aether Crystal ×4,000]
[Maintenance: Aether Crystal ×400 / min]
"Open."
[Aether Crystal: 304,066 → 300,066]
As soon as the gate stabilized, the wolf corpses went through first.
Then came four miners Bram had rotated out from the Gold Vein.
After the final cart of tools crossed, Cassian closed his personal Link immediately.
[Maintenance charge this use: 1 min]
[Aether Crystal: 300,066 → 299,666]
The four miners stepped into Galegrass Expanse with their tools.
The first thing they looked at was not the pile of wolf corpses.
It was the red-gold vein behind them.
The oldest miner crouched, scraped away a layer of ore skin, and studied it for two seconds.
"Starcopper."
"High purity too."
Cassian asked,
"How long until the Rank IV requirement turns green?"
"If we only need enough for the Advancement?"
The miner looked up.
"Within two days."
"Then mine it."
---
Over the next two days, the Warden Gate truly began to change Riftward’s map.
It did not make four hundred kilometers cease to exist.
It turned places that used to require a full day’s preparation just to reach once into hunting grounds they could enter repeatedly.
Cassian did not leave his personal Link open and burn Aether continuously.
Open it when teams went out.
Open it again when a large haul came back.
Keep it closed the rest of the time.
The three Officer Shared Links began working the same way.
Tobias pushed patrol coverage beyond the Region edge.
Rowan started connecting several Domain supply points willing to join the Emergency Logistics network.
Elara’s Link was the busiest.
Eira stayed with her for now.
On the first evening, Elara ran into another Epic.
A Level 31 Goldenmane Lion Lord.
This time Brogan lost no one.
He held the target in place.
Eira finished it from the side.
Elara sent only one line afterward.
[Elara Vayne: Putting Eira on my side really isn’t going to leave her idle.]
Cassian replied.
[Cassian Vale: Then don’t let her be idle in the wrong place.]
On the second day, Cassian’s own force had screened the high-value targets across more than a hundred kilometers around Galegrass Expanse.
Eleven Rare targets in total.
No Legendary.
No more Epics either.
But that was what a normal Outer March looked like.
It did not drop a Boss every ten kilometers.
Rare targets alone were enough to turn an ordinary new Lord’s expedition back.
To Cassian, they were Battle Essence, materials, and more targets he could keep screening until something with a Core Trait appeared.
The Fountain of Life and Domain Aether Vein continued producing according to Realm Time as normal. The Deep Layer did not create extra Daily Output.
Cassian did not travel four hundred kilometers back and forth every day just for one bottle of Life Essence. The next two Life Essences were sealed inside the Deep Layer for when he returned to Warbody training. Life Water went into storage as usual, while the Aether Vein condensed another 20,000 Aether over the two days.
[Life Essence: Stored ×2]
[Life Water: 16 → 36]
[Aether Crystal: 299,666 → 319,666]
The cost of opening the Gate had not vanished.
The ten thousand a day was simply paying part of the Outer March transit cost back over time.
The most important return was something else.
On the afternoon of the second day, the Starcopper miners sent confirmation.
[Starcopper Requirement: Satisfied]
The last red line on Forgotten Shrine’s Rank IV Advancement panel turned green.
---
The Shattered Marches had not stood still during those two days either.
The first notice that made Cassian look twice came from Seraphine.
[Cross-Newcomer Region Warden-Eligible Relocation Window: Open]
[Domains completing legal cross-Region relocation during this window retain their current Domain Rank. If the target Region’s Regional Boundary Defense has not yet triggered, eligible Rank III Domains may enter the first-100 participant sequence.]
This was not the same thing as the ordinary Outbound Relocation used by the more than four hundred Lords who had previously left Riftward.
Ordinary relocation let a Domain leave Riftward.
This window also preserved its Rank III record and the right to enter the Warden competition sequence.
Seraphine did not wait for the Valcrest external inventory to come in.
The first thing she sent Cassian was the landing point she had already selected.
[Target Newcomer Region: Greyfen Basin | Map Designation]
[Regional Warden: None]
[Rank III Domains: 99 / 100]
[Valcrest-aligned Lords already registered: 20+]
Greyfen Basin did not have an official Region name yet.
But for Seraphine, the conditions were specific enough.
More than twenty Valcrest-aligned or cooperating Lords were already there, enough to give her maps, supplies, and an initial support layer after arrival.
More importantly, Greyfen Basin had exactly ninety-nine Rank III Domains.
Regional Boundary Defense had not triggered yet.
Seraphine’s own Domain had been Rank III for a long time.
Her Rank III Advancement Record had been third in Riftward.
Ninety-nine.
She would be the hundredth.
So this was not relocation first, opportunity later.
She had already done the selection work.
Seraphine then bought a legally usable Domain Relocation Writ from the Regional Exchange. Riftward’s free-choice outbound window had long since closed, so the request came directly to Cassian.
[Outbound Domain Relocation Request]
[Lord: Seraphine Valcrest]
[Destination: Greyfen Basin]
[Applicant Domain: Rank III | Boundary Defense Eligible on registration]
Cassian read the whole thing.
Nothing was missing.
"Approve."
[Outbound Domain Relocation: Approved]
[Current Registered Lords: 403 → 402]
Seraphine left Riftward that same day.
The moment her Domain finished registering in Greyfen Basin—
[Greyfen Basin | Rank III Domains: 99 → 100]
[Regional Boundary Defense begins.]
[Participants: First 100 Rank III Lords to complete and register.]
No one had time to throw her a welcome party.
After relocating, Seraphine’s Domain entered its independent Defense Sector alongside the other ninety-nine participating Domains.
The twenty-plus Valcrest-aligned Lords could support her with intelligence and supplies before the defense began.
What decided the Warden seat was still the defense result.
That night—
[Greyfen Basin Regional Boundary Defense has settled.]
[Warden Points #1: Seraphine Valcrest]
[Regional Warden: Seraphine Valcrest]
[Official Region Name: Pending]
Her Private Channel lit up soon afterward.
[Seraphine Valcrest: Got the seat.]
[Cassian Vale: Better than being an Officer?]
[Seraphine Valcrest: One more Hero Contract slot.]
[Seraphine Valcrest: What do you think?]
[Cassian Vale: Want to bet on it?]
The other side stayed silent for five seconds.
[Seraphine Valcrest: I changed Regions and you’re still this annoying.]
Cassian closed the message.
She had really left.
And she had really taken a Warden seat in the place she chose.
Riftward had lost one independent competitor.
The Shattered Marches had gained another Warden who did not need to wait for Cassian’s orders.
The second matter came from Sable March.
Not a Ranking number.
A public message from Varek Sorn.
[Varek Sorn: Cassian Vale. Black Banner is still willing to talk.]
[Varek Sorn: Riftward keeps Warden independence. Open the eastern mountain route to the Faction Corridor. Aether, Troop contracts, cross-Region protection—the terms can be negotiated.]
Cassian replied with one line.
[Cassian Vale: The Royal Hall road isn’t for sale.]
Varek waited a few seconds.
[Varek Sorn: A pity.]
No argument followed.
No insults in the channel either.
That made it feel more like someone who would actually act.
---
On the afternoon of the second day, once the Starcopper requirement turned green, Cassian did not stay in Galegrass Expanse waiting for the miners to slowly build up inventory.
The first shipment containing enough Starcopper for Rank IV was loaded.
He reopened his personal Link.
[Opening Cost: Aether Crystal ×4,000]
[Aether Crystal: 319,666 → 315,666]
Cassian crossed first with the initial Starcopper shipment.
Twenty Rocketiers came through behind the ore carts.
For the last two days, they had been the most visible firepower in Galegrass Expanse.
Now that they were back, they did not take positions on the outer layer.
As soon as the Warden Gate closed, Veyra led all twenty launchers straight into the Deep Layer.
No Regional announcement.
No change to the public Outer March rotation record.
From outside patrol records, Aurelia, Celia, Highblood, and most of the Stormlance were still in the Outer March.
The Rocketiers’ last public appearance still placed them in Galegrass Expanse as well.
Only Cassian, Veyra, and the people who actually handled the deployment knew the truth.
Those twenty Dwarves were already back.
Eira remained on Elara’s eastern mountain line.
After the final cart of Starcopper passed through, Cassian closed his personal Link.
[Maintenance charge this use: 1 min]
[Aether Crystal: 315,666 → 315,266]
That evening, Cassian stood before Forgotten Shrine’s Domain Core.
[Forgotten Shrine Rank III → Rank IV]
[All Requirements: Satisfied]
[Advance?]
"Advance."
Golden light spread outward from the Domain Core.
Not like the Regional Boundary deployment that had pulled the entire Domain away.
This light moved outward in expanding rings.
The previously fixed Domain boundary pushed farther out again.
The open ground between the Forge, Oath Hall, Muster Hall, and Warden Gate visibly widened.
The Deep Layer trembled at the same time.
Folded Sanctuary’s spatial limit expanded with the Domain’s effective area.
[Forgotten Shrine: Rank IV]
[Domain Effective Area: Expanded]
[Deep Domain Layer Capacity: Expanded]
[New Building Unlocked: Swordsman Hall]
[Swordsman Hall: Recruits Elite Human Swordsmen.]
Cassian looked at the last line once.
Elite.
Forgotten Shrine’s main-force lines now started at Rare.
"Don’t build it yet."
Veyra stood beside the entrance to the Deep Layer.
"You just reached Rank IV and you’re already rejecting the first new Building?"
"It’s usable."
"But it isn’t the gap I need filled right now."
Veyra nodded.
"I believe that one."
She cared more about the enlarged Deep Layer.
"Expand the training ground farther in?"
"You decide."
Veyra looked at him.
"Fine."
She turned and went straight inside.
Most of the Eclipse force’s training line was in the Deep Layer today.
The twenty Rocketiers who had just returned were reloading in there too.
Veyra did not put them on the visible main layer.
Aurelia, Celia, Highblood, and most of the Stormlance truly were still rotating through the Outer March, while Eira remained on Elara’s eastern mountain line.
So from outside, Forgotten Shrine looked almost absurdly light on high-grade combat power.
And that emptiness was half real.
The other half was there for other people to see.
---
Less than an hour after Rank IV completed, notices began appearing one after another in the Shattered Marches Channel.
New Newcomer Regions completed Regional Boundary Defense in rapid succession.
In under two hours, more than twenty new Regions entered the Ranking.
Another large stake entered the public wager.
[Ironwake: +1,000,000 Aether Crystal]
Darian Frost sent one line.
[Darian Frost: I’m betting on myself.]
Tobias forwarded it to Cassian almost immediately.
[Tobias Reed: Are Warbound all this direct?]
Cassian glanced at his own balance.
[Aether Crystal: 315,266]
The money he intended to put on Riftward was still there.
None of it had entered the pool.
More Regions were entering now.
More Aether was flowing toward the favorites.
For him, that was better.
It was not the end yet.
So he kept waiting.
Cassian had not replied to Tobias when another message appeared first.
[Varek Sorn: Cassian. Last time.]
[Varek Sorn: If I were you, I’d consider moving my Domain farther away from the southeast line now.]
Cassian stared at the message.
Varek was not asking him to join Black Banner.
He was not negotiating over the Royal Hall either.
He was telling him to leave.
But did Varek really want Cassian gone?
If he did, there was no reason to warn him publicly beforehand.
It looked more like something else.
Make Cassian feel that leaving meant fear.
Make him stay.
Tobias saw half of it too.
[Tobias Reed: Is that a threat or is he provoking you?]
[Cassian Vale: Both.]
Rowan’s message followed immediately.
[Rowan Ashford: Three unfamiliar trade requests hit the southeast supply line today. I rejected all of them.]
Mira sent one too.
[Mira Calder: Northwatch intercepted Black Banner teams moving northwest. Numbers unclear.]
Elara asked only one question.
[Elara Vayne: Want me to call Eira back?]
Cassian looked over Forgotten Shrine.
It looked empty from outside.
It wasn’t.
The entire Eclipse line was inside the Deep Layer.
All twenty Rocketiers had finished reloading too.
[Cassian Vale: Not yet.]
Veyra looked at him from the Deep Layer entrance.
"The Rocketiers?"
"Keep them hidden."
"My line?"
"Don’t move either."
Veyra followed his gaze toward the Beacon Watchtower.
She did not ask again.
The moment he finished speaking, one Blackfang on the southwestern outer patrol line suddenly stopped.
Pack Dominion sent back three short impressions.
People.
Hiding.
Five.
Cassian’s eyes shifted.
"Don’t chase."
The order went straight back through Pack Dominion.
The Blackfang did not pounce.
It simply kept moving as though continuing an ordinary patrol.
Cassian climbed the Beacon Watchtower himself.
The dark-silver observation ring turned southwest.
A thirteen-hundred-meter field of view spread open.
At first, the naked eye saw nothing.
On the Beacon’s second sweep over the gray ground, however, five extremely faint dark-silver outlines were separated from the background.
Not an alarm.
A sustained observation lock.
Stealth could fool ordinary sight.
It had not fooled the Beacon.
Only then did Cassian follow the observation marks with Night Sight and pick out the first unnatural distortion in the air.
Then another beside it.
A second.
A third.
Five humanoid outlines, gray enough to nearly merge with the background, were slowly repositioning around Forgotten Shrine.
No public faction markers above their heads.
No active attack either.
Cassian did not let the Beacon sound an alarm.
"Keep watching."
Half an hour later, the five shadows withdrew.
A little over ten minutes after that, the Beacon Watchtower’s observation ring turned again.
This time, Night Sight did not need to search for distortions.
People had openly appeared at the edge of the war fog.
Not five.
Hundreds.
Black spears.
Dark-gray shield armor.
Rows of ranged troops wearing Sable March’s standard black cloaks.
And several teams that were obviously not ordinary Troops.
They had appeared from the direction of Riftward’s interior.
Not from a direct advance across the southeastern Region boundary.
The system had shown no new Domain Relocation notice either.
Cassian watched for two seconds.
Only one explanation made sense.
This force had entered through some Riftward Lord’s Waygate first.
Then traveled from there to Forgotten Shrine.
Among the four hundred and two Lords still registered in Riftward, someone had opened a door for Black Banner.
Cassian did not name anyone in the Regional Channel yet.
He did not open the Deep Layer either.
Veyra’s voice came from behind him.
She had already stepped out of the Deep Layer.
"How many?"
"Hundreds."
"My line?"
"Still inside."
Veyra looked at the dark figures drawing closer outside.
"Then don’t let them know yet."
Cassian nodded.
The Deep Layer sealed again.
Two hundred Eclipse Legionnaires.
Nine Praetorians.
The Fountain of Life.
And the entire training ground.
Not one of them could be seen from outside the main layer.
---
One kilometer from Forgotten Shrine, the Black Banner force was advancing.
The scouts at the front had already returned.
"Only a dozen or so visible defenders on the surface layer."
"No Rocketiers. Their last record during the two-day hunt still puts them in the Outer March."
"The two Legendary Heroes aren’t there either."
"The main Stormlance force is still outside too."
The Black Banner Lord in command glanced toward the distant Beacon Watchtower.
"The Watchtower didn’t detect you?"
The scout shook his head.
"No alarm."
The Lord smiled.
"Even smoother than expected."
He took out a dark-silver Scroll.
[Spatial Lock Scroll]
"At three hundred meters."
"Seal the Warden Gate first."
"Don’t let the main force outside come back."
Another Lord looked toward the unnaturally quiet open ground on Forgotten Shrine’s main layer.
"And then?"
"Then we find Cassian."
The force kept advancing.
One kilometer.
Eight hundred meters.
Five hundred.
Still no alarm from the main layer.
No new high-grade units appeared either.
The Black Banner Lord in command raised one hand.
The man carrying the Spatial Lock Scroll immediately moved forward.
"A little closer."
"Open it at three hundred."
The dark-silver Scroll remained rolled shut.
Unopened.